As the next minute ticked by, the battle all melded into a mess of inconsistent snippets, memories that made no sense. I lost count of the times I saw someone spin through the air, bleeding or blackened and apparently dead, only for them to be back seconds later, whizzing past me, seemingly unwounded. Mountainslide had looked like he was dying; now the dwarf wizard was ripping through his foes. At times I felt my blades pierce cloth and flesh and bone, slicing through people I didn’t even see, inflicting injuries the severity of which I couldn’t even guess at.

The wind whipped at us, for the first time in the battle flowing in a single direction; the hurricane pulled at our masks and robes and hair, and I saw one heretic lose his grip on a wand, the ensorcelled twig carried off in an instant. As I looked up, I saw a thundercloud the likes of which I’d never before witnessed, spreading like oil across the heavens.

I joined Em and Bor where the wind was a little less single-minded. Both of them independently gave me ‘the look’, indicating the still-slumbering Tanra in my arms, but I gave each champion the same helpless shrug in response. Instead of keeping my eyes on my teammates I went on the offensive, and threw everything I had at the Hierarch they’d been fighting. Everything the Hierarch wouldn’t instantly incinerate, at least.

I must’ve dropped a bintaborax on her at least twenty times but it never got old – the sixth-rank demons were relatively impervious to her spells, and by the time I rotated back to the first of the three its melted edges had been repaired back to their usual spiky sheen. They served for brilliant distractions; dodging fifty-ton bundles of iron that could reappear anywhere in an instant probably wasn’t easy all on its own – but in addition to the confusing array of fake attacks coming from the Stormswords spread across the sky, covering for the real strikes? It was starting to get to her: Hierarch Thirteen’s responses were becoming sloppy –

I brought out Mrs. Cuddlesticks so that the demon would fall directly on top of the heretic, leaving not three feet of clearance between my enemy and the portal over her head; a series of lightning-bolts, ninety-five-percent illusory, leapt out at her –

She feinted left, straight into Em’s true lightning-bolt.

Gasping, robe and flesh smoking, she dropped like a stone – and the real Stormsword followed her, pushed her with a crushing weight of air, striking her down at the ground –

An impact like that would turn the heretic to pulp.

“Storm!” I yelled at her mentally. I had no idea what I wanted to say, only – I couldn’t watch –

But I did watch – and looked on as the dying Hierarch seemed to open a crack in the earth beneath her.

Within an instant both arch-wizards had vanished into the ground below the heath, and then a series of explosions suddenly rippled across the hillock, making the heather tremble and the grass wave – I saw some of the grounded combatants lose their footing as the earth shook.

“Over there!” Zel cried.

She dragged my eyes over to the crater.

The two arch-wizards must’ve been inside the huge ball of dirt that burst out of the crater-wall, must’ve still been locked in their struggle in there – the massive clump of earth soared effortlessly against the gale, losing mass and shedding mud by the second.

I wanted to help her, but how? She might’ve been winning in there… If I intruded…

Better than her dying again, I thought grimly.

I bent my wings against the tempest-wind and gave chase, but the chunk of earth was outpacing me, swivelling and swerving chaotically –

Then I went deaf and blind, and I was surely not alone.

White thunder rocked me, shaking the very air, the ground below me roaring and hissing where the lightning struck it.

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I could hear Shadowcloud’s voice, a wordless expression of release that mingled with the thunder, raining down on us from the sky.

The wind halted abruptly, the air going dead. I couldn’t feel even the slightest breeze through my ethereal feathers.

When I could see again, Glimmermere was up there, descending with his body, and the battlefield – the battlefield had changed. Smoking holes riddled the hill, each of them roughly the size of a decent-sized house.

The bodies of those he’d actually struck – there was nothing left of them whatsoever.

Their force was weaker by thirty, maybe forty. Thirty or forty heretics, gone, turned to ash in a single action. Many had been sorcerers, shielded or eldritch-skinned; two of their arch-druids were gone, the absences plain due to the fact they’d both been immense monstrosities, looming over everything – until they just weren’t anymore.

It was a hell of a lot of kills, enough to tip things in our favour.

But Shadowcloud was gone.

It wasn’t worth it.

And I couldn’t see Em.

“Stormsword? Stormsword!”

My voice was lost in the commotion. Magisters in the link were expressing their elation and went straight back to the fight with renewed vigour, the kind of vigour even a druid couldn’t give you – but as for me, I rejoined the fray frantically, searching the battlefield. My taste for blood was entirely sated – I’d seen enough death – but the battle went on and I couldn’t see Em.

I entirely-accidentally spearheaded a charge through a series of barriers erected by lesser sorcerers in my desperation to see a flash of her lightning, her robe, somewhere in the tumult…

“There, Kas.”

Zel showed me her, the hair loose of her hood, streaming in the wind within which she’d armoured herself.

Stormsword had won, it seemed, given the amount of blood covering her that did not appear to be her own.

I sighed with relief, watching her while, oblivious of my gaze, she re-entered the conflict as though nothing had occurred.

Some of the magisters were questioning what had actually happened and I didn’t know what to say. One of them suggested something about the Third Law of Something Something, and the confusion continued until Timesnatcher spoke up:

“That was Shadowcloud’s parting gift to us. His soul’s one with the wind now.“

“Orovon bless his name, then,” I caught Zakimel saying in a tone of reverence and heartfelt gratitude. I could see the arch-magister on the western edge, leaping from dirt-elemental to dirt-elemental, popping their heads with some kind of sonic dagger and leaving them crumbling away in his wake.

“His name was Laithor,” Glimmermere whispered over the link. She’d gone back to healing, Laithor’s corpse at rest in her talons wherever she went. “He said he – he wanted everyone to know. And – and me. My name is Imrye.”

“It’s your intention to make your identity public?” Zakimel asked.

“It – yes. Yes, it is. I need to be me, for once.”

“Very well, Imrye. It shall be entered into your public records, and the criers shall proclaim it openly from now onwards.”

“K-Kas…?” came a dreamy murmur from below me.

I was busy moving a swarm of imps into the faces of some heretics, and it took me a moment to process the fact Tanra was awake.

“Killstop!” I cried, glancing down at her masked face squished against my chest. “You’re – you’re okay?

“Zakky’s so proper,” she said softly. “What’s his story, do you suppose? It’s so annoying, not being able to see.”

“No Killstop, I’m pretty sure you should be resting – no – not squirming out of my…”

Not if I’d had ten arms would I have been able to stop her; she was an arch-diviner and she was still outfitted with several arch-wizards’ flight-spells. Sighing, I gave up and let her go.

Whatever my reservations, they didn’t become regrets. Before I even processed the fact the weight of her was no longer encumbering me, my eyes were informing me she’d torn through three heretics’ hands with her knives, sending their precious fingers flying off.

We seemed to be getting a handle on things, and I built up in my mind the notion that they would soon break off and flee – we could lick our wounds, end the conflict – but just when I started to get complacent my advisor piped up.

“Glyphstone messaging incoming.”

Right on queue, I heard the familiar tingling sound emanating not only from my own pocket but from those all around me.

“Anyone know what it says?” someone said, a trace of their exerted grunting coming through over the link as well.

“I’ll check,” I offered. My shields were well-fixed, and I’d have paid a fair few plat to be able to spend a minute not watching my friends kill people –

“Finished,” Timesnatcher said.

“Beat me to it,” I heard Killstop mutter.

“We’re needed up north,” he continued. “They’re hitting the Maginox. We all know why. They need back-up, or we could lose everything.”

Zakimel wasted no time organising the rearguard, barking orders at a terrifying rate, but I took a moment to process Timesnatcher’s meaning.

I shivered.

It’s all about the twins.

* * *